Stretching Routine

I've been doing my stretches for quite a while now, and I thought that I would share these with you. These stretches were developed over several sessions with my Physiotherapist, having observed how I walk and following discussions about what I find difficult to do. They fit also in well with my other health activities - weekly Pilates, cycling a few times a week and walking around during the day.

I've a picture of me doing each of my stretches, followed by a few notes about each one. These are given in the order that I do these in.

Hamstring Stretch

When I do this stretch I focus on keeping both legs as straight as possible, and I try to keep the foot on the floor pointing forward, although of course having it at an angle helps with balance. Reaching forward to touch my toes isn't necessary for the stretch, I use this to measure how much movement I have - some days I can reach my toes, and others I cannot. I do each leg for 20-30s, and then repeat.

Adductor Stretch

On this stretch I also focus on keeping each leg as straight as possible, and I also try to keep my body upright as well. I find this a bit tricky to get into this position, so I am often using the wall to help. I do each leg for 20-30s. I get my second stretch of these muscles a bit later on.

Calf Stretch - part 1

For this stretch I try to keep my legs straight, and in line with my body, like a plank. I also focus on keeping my heels on the ground to get the stretch. I vary the stretch slightly with the distance between my feet and the wall. This gets both legs done for the first time in one stretch for 20-30s.

Calf Stretch - part 2

For this stretch I have one foot in the same position as part 1, and bring the other foot forward. I aim to keep both heels on the ground, and try to keep the plank for the rear leg and my body, although I also adjust the front knee so that I get a similar stretch on both legs. I do this stretch with each leg forward once for 20-30s.

Calf and Adductor

For this stretch I try to get the second stretch on the part2 calf muscles and on my adductors. This stretch is a squat. I am focusing on keeping my feet parallel, my heels on the ground and my body upright to get the calf stretch, and I focus on keeping my lower leg vertical and my knees far apart to get the adductor stretch. I hold this stretch for 20-30s, and some days I will do this one twice.

Hip Flexors

For this stretch I focus on keeping my knees close together, and my body upright. I do this once on each leg for 20-30s.

Roll-downs

This is how I finish my stretches. It is a move that I learnt at Pilates, and I use it to improve my spine flexibility. The focus is on the spine, so I my knees are slightly bent. Again, I am using the distance between fingers and toes as the measure of the stretch. I've not yet touched my toes! I do three roll downs and hold each one for a few seconds.

Summary

This is a quick overview of my stretches. I generally do these twice a day. Since I have been measuring the time using fitbit I can report that I actually do 10-12 sets of stretches per week, with the most likely omissions being Saturday and Sunday mornings. I count each stretch rather than measure each one with a clock, so the 20-30s is a bit variable. In total my stretches take between about 6 and 11 minutes to do.

Symptoms Update - fall, bike, bed, tired!

This is a quick update on symptoms. Whilst the post title may suggest a single story, these are in fact separate things.

Last year I took part in the Plymouth HSP falls study. Over this time (and in fact before this time) I didnt have any falls. There have been a few moments when it has been close, but I have been able to prevent a fall. The other week I had my first fall, which marks the start of a new symptom to be tracked. I was coming down the stairs at home, wearing socks. About half way down one of my feet either missed or slipped off the step which caused me to fall down. I landed on my bottom, and aside from one toe bumping into the banister/balusters during the landing there was no damage done. I've noted before about using the banister to get up and down stairs, which I do pretty much all of the time (except when carrying). I know that I use the banister less going downstairs, but I think this fall was from going too fast rather than anything else.

Readers may note that some while ago I switched from using normal pedals on my bike to using cleats. As noted this has prevented my feet from sliding all over the pedals, which is a good thing. Recently I've been trying out different muscle groups whilst cycling, and when my muscles are feeling a bit tight from my normal cycling I switch for a short while to putting the power on when i'm pulling my feet up rather than pushing them down. This helps rest those other muscles, and a few minutes later I'll be back to normal.

When in bed these days I'm finding it much more comfortable to sleep on my side with my legs bent a little at the hips and knees. I have mostly slept either like this or laying flat on my back. When laying on my back I'm feeling the tension in my leg muscles, which is not conducive to going to sleep.

Overall, I'm spotting that I'm needing to sit down quicker. I had observed during the Christmas season the need to sit down later in the evening, but I am now beginning to spot that symptom earlier in the day as well. Once I've sat for a short while I'm then able to get back up and carry on. This is most likely the spasticity of my muscles, but as this happens more when I am tired, it may also be a bit of fatigue creeping in.

Taking all this into account, I kind of realise that I'm unlikely to be able to manage spending the day walking 20-25km in the Lake District any more, which is a bit of a shame. I am though, still going out for various longer bike rides at the weekends, which is a good way to test how tired i'm getting. I notice that it is my legs which get tired well before the rest of my body gets tired, and fitbit tells me that my heat rate very rarely gets into the peak zone. I've recently worked out how to get heart rate from fitbit into strava, so there's a new dataset to look at as well.